FIG. 1 depicts graphically a beef tenderloin 100, where the upmost part 111 is often referred to as the head of the tenderloin, the bottom most parts 104-106 as the tail of the tenderloin and the part there between (101-103) is often referred to as the center part of the tenderloin. After the tenderloin has been trimmed, e.g. by removing some parts of fat and membrane, etc. the thumb-like part 110 of the tenderloin extends outwardly from the head part 111 and points somewhat towards the tail of the tenderloin.
As shown here, a cutting profile has been created for the tenderloin based on e.g. image data for instructing a cutting device to cut the tenderloin into fixed portion weights of e.g. 200 g. The head part 111 may of course also be divided into several portions of fixed target weight, e.g. also 200 g. A portion cutter is utilized to automatically cut the tenderloin into such fixed portions based on the cutting profile shown here.
The price of the portions of center cuts 101-104 (often called Barrel) is today around $25/lb ($55/kg) whereas the price of the head steaks (often called Metro) is around $12/lb ($26/kg).
When cutting tenderloin with a portion cutter, in many cases the thumb that forms a V-shape 109 will come out de-attached to the major part of the meat portion, and hence the major part of the meat portion is below the desired target weight, e.g. in the example shown here the major part will be 180 g and the thumb part 20 g. The result is that the meat portion in question will be down-graded to a much lower price than otherwise, i.e. instead of $25/lb it will be downgraded to $12/lb and thus the yield of the processing will obviously be decreased.
United States patent application publication number 2005/032471 to Pfarr et al. is background art.